


Broken Pencils & Broken Hearts

by Kabby_Kru



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke pov, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabby_Kru/pseuds/Kabby_Kru
Summary: The Griffin girls comfort one another through a shared hobby while Marcus is in a coma. Post-season 5 after everyone is awake from cryo but still on the ship.





	Broken Pencils & Broken Hearts

She sits at a desk inside a small, well-lit room on the Eligius ship. She runs her hands precariously over the paper, unsure where to start. She's never struggled this much before with a drawing and she is not sure why this one in particular is so difficult. Except, she does know. It needs to be perfect. He deserves that. 

Her eyes scan the floor, crumbled up pieces of paper strewn around the tiny room. She's broken countless pencils in the process. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, starting over once more.

She begins by outlining his features, his prominent nose taking the most time. She wants it just right. 

Later comes the eyes. She stops in her tracks. She can never get the eyes right, evident by the plethora of crumpled up papers lying everywhere. Marcus Kane always had the innate ability of speaking to you using merely his eyes and Clarke was never satisfied with her previous scrapped attempts. She skips the eyes for now.

He's been in a medically-induced sleep for 30 days now. 54,780 days, chronologically speaking. She closes her eyes once again, trying to recollect his features in her mind. Beard or no beard? Definitely beard. He became a nicer person when he grew a beard, Clarke thinks as she chuckles to herself. 

She traces and colors in his hair, a single curl falling into his face. She begins to shade his cheekbones and nose and forehead, still ignoring the eyes. She does all that she can do, everything near-perfect, until the final thing remains: his eyebrows and eyes.

Eyebrows have always been her least favorite part about drawing portraits. Naturally, eyebrows were often uneven, but when drawing, Clarke finds it difficult to find a balance between drawing realistically flawed eyebrows without making them look just plain  _bad_. She takes a deep breath, sharpens her pencil with the small manual pencil sharpener on the table, pencil shavings leaking from the lid. She's surprised herself thus far. It's possibly her best work, save for the eyes. She's never had any problems drawing from memory; she'd lost count how many times she drew her mom, Marcus, Bellamy, Octavia, and the others over those 6 years they were apart. This time was different, however. This time, Marcus may never wake up. 

Her hand begins to absently toy with the pencil and her excitement about her art begins to wane as she thinks about the man her mother loves, lying alone in the cryo chamber, fighting for his life.

She thinks about her mother and how heartbroken she will be to lose yet another man she loves.  _She's lost too much_ , Clarke thought.  _So have_ _I_. A bit selfish, perhaps, but it was true. Clarke's lost one father already. She fights back her tears and swallowed the lump in her throat. She needs to finish.

She steadies her pencil in her hand and presses down a little too hard and the pencil breaks. With a huff, Clarke tosses the pencil across the room and slams her hands down onto the desk. She searches the top of her messy desk for another pencil, finding one with an eraser that's nearly gone hidden under a stack of plain off-white colored paper. She picks up the pencil, preparing herself to begin where she had left off, but someone's presence stops her. She looks and finds her mother standing in the doorway with a furrowed brow, confused and concerned. Clarke knows her mother heard the noise. 

Without a word, Abby's eyes move from Clarke to the paper, landing on the indistinguishable, unfinished face of one Marcus Kane. Abby's face softens and she pulls up a chair to sit beside her daughter. Clarke's eyes once again fill with tears, drawn out by sadness and frustration, and as her mother pulls her closely, she finally willed them to fall free.

"I..." Clarke's words catch in her throat. "I can't get the eyes right," she croaked. 

* * *

Abby shushes her daughter and runs her fingers through Clarke's short, blonde hair. Clarke's face is buried into her mother's chest, tears quickly soaking Abby's grey tank top.

Abby clears her throat and kisses the top of her daughter's head. She knew Clarke cared for Marcus, but she's never seen her break down like this over him. Since Abby awoke nearly a month ago, Clarke has seemed rather strong. Her and Bellamy leading the people, preparing for their landing on the new planet that Monty strived so hard to get them to. But now it's evident that Clarke has been pushing away her emotions and, much like Abby, she's held it in until she can no longer stand it, like a balloon being filled up with air until it bursts. 

Abby picks up a pencil and sharpens it, ignoring the shavings that leak out. It's been decades since she's drawn anything, but she wants to help, so she removes her glasses hooked to the collar of her shirt and wipes the tears off of them before putting them on. She stares at the near-finished picture, remembering Marcus' brown eyes. The brown eyes she looked into as he made love to her for nine days straight in Polis. The brown eyes that looked at her, half-hooded, as he spoke his final words to her. "She killed those people. Not you. It was Octavia." Abby was determined to save him that day. He still has a chance, she reminds herself daily. But still she wonders if she did enough. 

Clarke raises her head and dries her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Abby, previously focused on the drawing, notices Clarke stirring and forces a smile.

"It's okay, baby," Abby shushes. 

With one comforting arm wrapped around her daughter, Abby steadies the pencil in her hand and begins to outline those eyes that she loves so dearly- the eyes that she hopes will open once again, any day now.

Together, the two of them finish the drawing and it comes out more perfect than either of them could have ever expected. After the finishing touches, they both look upon it and cry, falling into one another for comfort. 

With Clarke's approval, Abby decides to hang the drawing up in her room beside the bed where she decides she will kiss it every morning and evening until he awakes. 


End file.
